Marionette
by Orahiko
Summary: The end, the beginning, and a little in between. 12. THe mimicing of a mimery, perhaps. Like violence in pastels, and you'll never tread the wrong path.


…………………………

The – denotes change in POV, I'm afraid. From Heero to Duo, 12.

It's my first Gundam Wing. It's a mix between the end and the beginning, and something in between.

You'll see the last, I'm afraid.

Or I would be.

I simply own nothing.

That eases my conscience-and the small voice that accompanies the miniature of Locke. (So cute!)

…………………………

He found himself again, on the brink of economic ecatastophe, and wanted nothing more than rest, which was so quickly denied. She smiled at him, radiant in fragile cotton and silk threaded lace, unwavering at his gruff rebuke, to come and live with her in a dead city of fallen stars.

The balcony that he watched from was gilded leaf, the red velvet frayed, the shadows enticing. Politicians moved sleekly, pleased with their own arrogance, under the blaze of the ballroom. The crystal chandeliers shimmered delicately, promising hair fine death, the smooth separation of bones from flesh. He tried and tried, but could not protect the smiling child, innocent in white eyelet, her skin smooth and pampered, from the gleams of avarice among her suitors, old men wearing young faces. Peace devoured her like contentment. He had thought her too wise.

He surrounded himself with the bones of giants, huge and twisted, that once fell from his feet to the captivating earth. Stardust clung to their blue-shadowed hides, sleek and tarnished: red-dust fell from his clothing; he washed it from his hair like dried blood, a hank falling across his face limply.

He walked the surface of a bubble in the distant sky, undeserving of the smile of a friendly girl. She shielded her hair with a beret, recognition of a society long dead, a polar opposite from her gregarious personality.

They found no solace in washed-bronze sunsets, or in new grass, the lustre of steel and concrete, promising future education, were beyond them. The nights were warm, streetlights illuminating prosperous neighborhoods, dented street signs. The paint on everything was thick and new, the smell cloying.

They were too old, it was like seeing the world through a film of gauze, a grainy black and white photograph, a glimpse in a puddle that shuddered in a breeze; no use. They wanted more than others could give to them. They passed by others unseen, unremarkable, but every step felt like one retraced in a distant future. Living like this was like dying with their mouths open and nostrils flared, eyes wide-like exhaling and shriveling into nothing, until the wrapping that enshrouded them fell away, and they crept into shadows.

One found solace in work, the crisp brown uniform suited him well: two found solace in each other, lost in themselves. They had no such lovers, and found themselves dreaming while awake, tracing patterns in the false air.

Need was merely to be dismissed, loneliness a familiar companion, but they knew nothing more, and therefore missed little.

They simply existed, day after day, weeks to years, it made no difference. Bereft of their gods, they wandered alone. The sky was a blank, dark blue, and lights flickered, neon, below them. The streets were shadowed, the wind free; they were no longer able to roam the world at their amusement.

This world took freedom away, and gave little in return for their memories.

Sudden death was a surprise: more so a relief.

They promised secretly to never subject themselves to such loneliness.

They lied, of course.

But this was before that, for an instant.

The angel's eyes were bright, unnaturally so, with a horrible stiffness in his posture. The other angel stared at him, blankly.

Afternoon sunlight warmed the cobblestones faintly beneath his feet; a flicker of gold in the air around him warmed the faces of those who saw him. His eyes were infinitely dark, something in the way he walked suggested nobility-neither archaic nor formal, but a profoundly kind patience. He looked between fourteen to thirty nine: old, they said, a man with an old soul and kind eyes.

They were wrong, of course, but it did not matter.

His eyes were not kind. They were unrelenting, but with a clarity that seemed to undermine it, and few looked at him directly and smiled. Something in the eyes, they said.

He was beloved, which was enough for most.

He feels choked, as if something is pressing on his lungs and bones and soul, and there's something, awful, terrible, and catastrophically wrong with the world. The wind blew newspapers around his feet like excited puppies; he looked away, and they fell limply to the ground.

He hasn't felt like this for a thousand years.

He thinks he hates that angel, but he doesn't quite know what hate is. He never will.

"Hello," he says, his throat dry, unfailingly polite, "May I help you?"

The angel smiles at him. It is not a nice smile. His eyes are piercing, and he seems indifferent to the smokescreen of manners.

The olive trees are tall, the fruit dark beneath the leaves; a few children and a white dog toll underneath them, lost in the hollows of earth and overgrown grass. The stone-wall is crumbling. He finds solace in the dimming light.

"Angel," he says, his voice mocking, rough and caressing. A hint of laughter deepens it. "What is your kind doing here?"

"The same could be could of yours," he replies, wary.

"I felt love," he retorts, unbelieving. "I felt so much love and peace and general bloody contentment it made me sick, little savior. You've undone all my hard work."

"They are content, happy, even, for this century," he says, unblinking.

"They think you're everything," he said absently. "They adore you, they worship you; you devour them."

"No," he said, reflexive, "They adore the Father. They worship him, they love him-they are not consumed by their sins, only their own mortality."

The angel laughed, debauched, impulsive; he spun, the ragged edges of his coat whirling around him, his shadow heavy. His eyes were clear, dizzying and unfocused- mad, perhaps, but luminously solid in the faint light. His face was pale and upturned.

He laughed, choking laughter, wheezing heavily; staggering with it. "They love you, pretty angel, perfect angel, they cannot live without you. You cleanse them of their guilt, of the weight of their sins-they feel nothing to the perfection of the father. They will not dream without you; is that freedom? They cannot do the meanest task without you, without approval, continued avowal of your love, or even what they believe to be that, do you call that devotion? They are obsessed with love, drowned with it: with a living perfection, what else could they do, but hate and despise you?"

"The are not old enough for that," he said, patient. Tired. His eyes slid away, watching that childish, bitter smile, lost in the utter perfection of its sureness, it's insanity.

The angel passed onward-his cloak shrouded him like robes.

"Someday you will believe like this," he said softly, unseeing.

marionette

He was alone, blue with cold, sick, deprived, seemingly deformed-I was a doctor, sworn to help mankind. How could I have refused him?

I took him home and dried him off, washed him, fed him, warmed him, and to my dismay I found him to be a creature of the vilest kind, cold and unfeeling; not a human, but merely a doll!

_A doll is perhaps more human than most. _

_The man was a fool and the doll was a liar, and they would've-could've-should've lived happily ever after._

I was a mercenary.

In a group of us, full of laughter and comradeship, choking on death.

The adults were loud and scarred and full of anger.

And I was a child.

We apprehended some bandits, we said we were going-

To take the money and give it rightfully to its owners,

Or charge a toll, whichever one they fell for,

But they said,

Go ahead and steal, there's nothing to be had.

Nothing at all, and there wasn't.

They said; If you can't steal from anybody, since there's nothing worth stealing,

Why don't you steal from each other?

And we almost did, because there was nothing left to take.

And then somebody gave me this machine.

It was a loan, but there's no such thing as a loan in a war-

I baptized it with blood.

I stole nothing.

But they call my name now, cheering,

And applaud me for my deeds,

And greatness of heart. They say-

I'm a radical. That I am a free thinker.

The stars are distant-space could swallow you whole and never notice; it's done the same to countless men and ships, and someday, you think, when mankind stops scrambling and reaches the edge, they're going to find a heap of dead bodies.

It's not a pretty thought, but, well, you don't have pretty thoughts.

It's just too cold out there.

It's easier to focus on work, you're too busy to be scared, but one you're in here, and the difference between the thin layer of warmth and the bone-cutting cold of space is a faint blue glow, pale and constant. The glass is smooth, the curve polished; the machinery is ever present, lurking between paper-thin steel walls and heavy pieces of siding. Its hum is monotonous, like a giant beehive; that sends out worker after worker to the endless unknown.

Heero Yuy is on this ship, and you should feel delighted-somehow, since he's competent and strong and you're both on the same side, but that doesn't necessarily mean for the same things.

His footsteps come across the carpeted flooring softly, like pebbles thrown into a pond; you have no idea of what will happen when he stops. He excludes, authority, later, but for now his actions are heavy with consequence, his words remarkable, gifted.

It's enough to make you sick, even if you weren't impressed.

Breath forms a mist on the glass, caught between the heat of a human and the chill of eternity- it dissolves, unimportant. You can feel him behind you, weighty as glass, stopping, perhaps, for a few profound sentences. He's stronger. You're not a weak boy, sturdily built, but his calves and back are wired with muscle: sometimes if feels like his skin is invisible, clear as glass, bronze and copper cogs turning as a mass of muscles and veins and tendons churn underneath.

It's such an amusing picture.

He's still waiting, but it's such fun to provoke him. This is still your territory, even if he hasn't figured it out; few come here, anyway.

They all seem so terribly afraid of you.

-

He's ignoring you. You don't even know why you're talking to him, this child, soldier, that is. You don't know.

You saw him fight, and he saved you, eyes narrowing long and sly, fingers quick, and wondered at his open mouthed bewilderment at your disregard for life, and free falling. You stole the bones from his Gundam, rubbing black oil stains in your hands and clothing that didn't go away, not even later-the oil soaked through the cloth, and left smudges on your skin.

You didn't realize he was human. You didn't realize he was alive. You didn't notice he was a person, or that he might have had thoughts of his own.

He laughed. At you, strange boy, wholeheartedly and honestly. Crouched on his machine, like a four-legged creature, his hands splayed like spiders. Eyes shading from lavender-plum to faint blue, his skull heavy. His bones were too broad for his skin, you noted, but you were noble and secretive, and you weren't supposed to notice such things.

Not even slick, clever hands. Too sly, he'd catch you and eat you and stuff you, put you on a wall with a brass nameplate and velveteen frame.

Clever clever clever, and too smooth to be cheating. The words hammered in his forehead, poking their way out through the softness of his eyes.

He ignored them nobly. The silence is too deadly. There's a gentle throbbing in his side, a bruise, perhaps. It shouldn't matter, so it doesn't. I wouldn't like myself; he thinks abruptly, then almost flushes.

He feels human.

After a while, he moved away, but only to the other side. He's being watched, he knows, but Duo is cradling his head in his knees, forehead pressed against the glass, fingertips outstretched beside his face, hair heavy across his back.

He remembers the afternoon he left, when the hair was freckled with a crystallization of salt, the back of his neck flushed with sun, face laughing, absent, empty curves underneath the too-wide eyes, empty and a little smooth. The sun was brilliant, blazing over crests of waves, the ship steady and silent; a slow dark presence through the crashing waves, soaked gold and dazzling.

Duo's shadow had been long and black on the worn floor.

-

Heero's face had been quiet, like a carving of old wood, with the same worn slickness to the features.

Dark, plain, and perhaps a little sad. He had been naturally distant, but that was to be expected.

This was a war.

He should have guessed that the coldness of the sea and the bewilderment of the sky would catch hold in his mind- he missed the false land of colonies, with it's strange, sudden inhumanness and brown sky and white earth, he missed the distance, feeling of being perched precariously out to space, if you leaned forward too far, you would tumble forever into the dizzying darkness, a little pocket of life in the deep silence. Being underwater was a like forgetting, like learning how to dance, and a little like dying; it freed you, kept you, devoured you like a possession.

Breaking the surface hurt. Thick glassy waves, green and stiff, smashed into skin, salt blistered cuts and broke sores; the bitterness blinded you and stung.

Heero was nothing like the sea, and everything like himself.

-

Duo was nothing like a person, but he was real.

This was war-the cold cruelty of guns and the malevolence of bullets, the clean brightness of laser beams, like sudden solar rays, burning, purifying, the suddenness of adrenaline and anger and skill. No need to think. No need to breathe.

The blood on his hands, in his fingernails, the stench in his hair- he no longer loathed the copper taste of his own, but the feeling of another's was revolting; quiet, peace, action, reflex, freeze, jump, punch, move, and escape, leaving carnage in his wake. Red flakes were scrubbed clean by ammonia, his clothing pristine thanks to enzymes. The smell, cologne. The bruises, easily explained and quicker to heal.

Snow. Blood clung to his eyelashes, hung fragrant in his nostrils, fingernails chipped and dyed with some perverse enamel. Bury yourself, lose yourself, watch and enjoy. You don't mind the pain. You don't mind the death.

But it's just so quiet.

It's too quiet.

He can't breathe. The bells ring time, half time, hourly time; impatient and jarring, leap up, confined in copper wire, and shout in their ears.

He wonders at the irony of a boy who doesn't believe in a God, and a priest in training who can't.

At a soldier who's forgotten to breathe over the beauty of the stars, and a pilot who fights for them, cursing them.

The fire traced bright streaks across the sky, like rockets. The heavy walls hugged each other, then collapsed like paper, like he always expected them to. Her smile was sweet, traces of her perfume lingered in unexpected places. She was redemption, and the Father was one of his people. His.

Their bodies felt like limp mannequins, soaked as they were blood-her arms stuck our wrongly, somehow. He could see her pain in the blue smudges under her eyes, and the way she murmured.

Her wrist bones felt light, delicately hollow. He hadn't realized how young she still had been.

He should have been more careful.

His head broke the waves, sunspots dazzling in his eyes. A wave crested nearby, faintly golden, with a familiar perfume.

He jerked back, his arm instinctively rising.

Heero leaned forward beside him. He raised a curious hand, fascinated and silent.

-

"I think we're dead," he said, unexpectedly, turning. "I think…' he said, looking around-

"I feel alive, so I think I'm dead." His hand curled up, and he shoved it in his pocket.

Duo's fingers toyed with the fraying fiber of the carpet roughly. He looked around. The wall was dim gray, a rounded corridor stretched around the end of a narrow hallway. The air fixtures whined faintly, an incessant hum in the dusty silence, somehow seemingly far away.

Heero had already gotten to his feet, awkwardly purposeful. He looked determined, much to Duo's confusion. He could see that he would have to persuade him out of some mad idea. He stood up despairingly.

Heero's brow furrowed. "We'll need to decide where to go next. See what happens, maybe."

He looked at Heero's face, eager, and almost glowing, and felt empty. "Goodbye," he said quietly.

The light went out of Heero's face. He looked suddenly anxious. "I thought," he said hesitantly, "I thought that you would come. It's over. We have nothing to do, no obligations to fulfill.

I don't understand."

"No," said Duo. You don't. He felt mildly cold, and a little tired.

He looked at Heero, at his dour, expectant look and serious eyes, dark in the faint light, at his short fingernails rubbing anxiously against the fabric of his coat and the air of-priggishness, which accompanied his every action. He saw the wistful curve of Heero's mouth, and felt his own smile in return.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do.

He would be terribly afraid of losing him, anyway. But that was cowardice, and perhaps not all of it.

Not quite inequality, either. He had his own points of pride.

What he was most afraid of, thought Duo, as he watched Heero walk away, was the utter blankness of existence. Boredom was not an option, but just the selfishness.

In order to love, you had to love that person with more than the pleasure they brought into your life, more than routine, or gratitude, but as an extension, a loss of self love, a transfer. Osmosis.

In order to love, you had to give up some things, because you are not the same person. You will never love them the way they love you. Ever. And they will never love you the way you love them.

It's simplicity in its more complex form, duality, complications, and a simple choice.

Like violence in pastels, and you'll never tread the wrong path.

But sometimes you might be poorer for it.

That's….

All.

"Stay," said Heero, and meant it.

Had meant-I'll love you for the rest of your life, but it was too late for that.

.:I love you not, I adore you not, you are nothing to me, you are everything to them:.


End file.
